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ADDRESS 



BY 



Hon. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, LL.D. 

At the Celebration of the Thirty-eighth 
Anniversary of the Debate between 
Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. 
Douglas, .it 

GALESBURG. ILLINOIS, OCTOBER 7, 



ADDRESS 



AT THE 



Celebration of the Thirty-eighth Anniversary 
of the Debate between Abraham Lincoln 
and Stephen A. Douglas, at Gales- 
burg, Illinois, October 7th, 1896. 

BY. 

CT-IAriNCKY M. DEPEW. 



Abrahani Lincoln was not an accident, but a de- 
velopment. He did not leap into leadership at a 
bound, but earned the position by laborious prepara- 
tion and frequent demonstrations of supreme ability. 
It is only thirty years since the country was shocked 
as never before by his assassination, and yet to the 
vast majority of the American people he is already 
a legendary character, and the human elements which 
endeared him to his generation are forgotten. We 
have made history so rapidly in the last quarter of 
a century that even the thrilling events of the civil 
war can no longer conjure votes or move audiences. 
Memorial day, which was once a period of passion 
and sorrow, is now a popular picnic and children's 
holiday. 

To understand the significance of the meeting here 
thirty-eight years ago between Lincoln and Douglas, 
we must recreate the conditions under which they 
fought, revive the questions which caused parties to 



rush from partisanship to rebellion, and reincar- 
nate the combatants on this famous field. The ap- 
parent contest was the statehood of Kansas, but both 
the orators and the people knew that the tremen- 
dous issue was between freedom and slavery, the dis- 
solution of the Union or its perpetuity. 

The founders of the Republic regarded slavery as 
an institution destined to ultimate extinction. Wash- 
ington and Jefferson and their slave-holding asso- 
ciates saw with grave apprehension the perils of its 
continuance and the incompatibility of its growth 
with free institutions. Under normal conditions, it 
would have gradually disappeared with the moral 
pressure of the liberty-loving sentiment and the in- 
dustrial superiority of free labor. 

It is easy to be virtuous when it costs little, and 
much easier when it is advantageous. Greed and 
conscience have been battling ever for the mastery. 
That conscience wins in the end is a tribute to the 
better elements of human nature, and that interest 
can blind and sophistry mislead for generations teaches 
humility and distrust of ourselves. 

The politics of the United States and the destiny of 
millions of human beings were suddenly changed by a 
piece of mechanism. Whitney invented the cotton gin, 
slave labor became enormously profitable, and slavery 
grew to be the most aggressive power in the country. 
It was popular at the time of the formation of the Con- 
stitution to pass the ordinance of 1787 by which was 
consecrated forever to freedom the territory comprising 
the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin, 
but thirty-three years afterwards, in 1820, Missouri 
had to be surrendered to slavery to save the Union. 



All the intelligence, the capital, the business energy, 
and the political power of one-half the Union had con- 
centrated and created the most audacious and for- 
midable political force ever known in representative 
government. It had one purpose — the protection and 
extension of slavery. It aimed to control the govern- 
ment and dominate parties. It was the power within 
both of the great organizations into which the people 
were divided. It selected its leaders with wonder- 
ful ability and served them with unswerving loyalty. 
It made or crushed careers as Northern statesmen 
were obedient to its commands. It had no gratitude 
for past favors, and as mercilessly discarded its ser- 
vile friends who had become unpopular at home be- 
cause of their servility, as it destroyed those who 
temporized with its interests upon either principle or 
policy. The conscience of the non-slaveholding popu- 
lation was slowly awakening, but moving tentatively 
and timidly under dread of trade disturbances and 
threats of the dissolution oi the Union. 

The compromise of 1820, by declaring all of the new 
territory north of parallel 36.30 free and all south 
slave, and admitting Missouri, which was north, as 
a slave state, was hailed by those who loved both 
union and liberty as the gain of a large area for free- 
dom. It was really the recognition by law of slavery 
in the territories, the gain of a state and its Sena- 
tors by the slave power, and leaving the Northern 
territory for a fresh attack when the time came for 
its settlement. For slavery, founded upon the greatest 
of wrongs, can respect neither rights nor compacts. Yet 
there existed a passionate devotion to peace and union, 
and the compromise of 1820 was gratefully accepted. 



The abolition sentiment, inflamed by the arrogance 
and aggressive action of the slave power, was constantly 
winniiig converts and demanding Congressional action 
in the territories and the District of Columbia. The 
crisis, as always, with the threat of secession behind it, 
became acute, and was once more tided over by the 
compromises of 1850. By these measures slavery se- 
cured national recognition of the institution at the 
capital and the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Law, 
but the Union saved was regarded by the vast majority 
as well worth this sacrifice of honor, morality, and liberty. 

Upon this altar was burned the proudest reputa- 
tion and mightiest treasure of intellect and character 
the country possessed. There are many paths to the 
Presidency, but the Southern leaders could confidently 
say to every ambitious statesman : No matter what 
your views on other questions, no man has reached the 
White House in a generation except by the Southern 
road. The anti-slavery people turned to Daniel Web- 
ster for leadership. They expected from him a mighty 
effort. His historical reply to Hayne had estab- 
lished the right and power of the Nation to protect 
its life and liberties. No speech in the records of rep- 
resentative government ever had such immediate and 
permanent influence in shaping the institutions and 
destinies of a country. The glowing periods and 
patriotic interpretation of the Constitution, declaimed 
from the platforms of schools and academies by suc- 
ceeding generations, educated and inspired the passion 
for nationality, the Union, and the flag, which put two 
millions of citizens in arms, and placed the Republic 
upon enduring foundations at Appomattox. Webster's 
seventh of March speech aroused and embittered the 



5 

anti-slavery feeling as nothing before had done. This 
supreme intelligence had made Massachusetts first and 
most'honorcd among American commonwealths by his 
immortal apostrophe to her, when, with infinite majesty 
and pathos, he called the attention of the Senators and 
the people to her proud position. Now, tempted by 
the^prize of the Presidency, he said to her: "Massa- 
chusetts must conquer her prejudices." " They have 
been created by the din and roar and rub-a-dub of 
abolition press and abolition lecturers beaten every 
month and every day and every hour." More in 
sorrow than in anger — but with impressive dignity and 
power — Massachusetts answered: "What you con- 
temptuously term prejudices are the eternal principles 
of righteousness and justice, taught and enforced by 
none so eloquently and ably as yourself. Massachusetts 
reveres your past and mourns your present." The 
Convention of 1852 met to nominate a President. 
Webster's speech had been of incalculable service to 
the South in carrying its measures through Congress, 
but it had destroyed his availability with the North. 
He was defeated, and the greatest statesman of the 
century died of disappointment and mortification. 
Webster's recusancy aroused the colleges and the pul- 
pits and gave tremendous impetus to the anti-slavery 
party. His example, illustrating so conspicuously that 
the Northern man who lost popularity at home by 
service to slavery would be rejected by the slave power 
for more available recruits, opened the eyes of the most 
morally dense ambitious to the merciless and heartless 
purposes of the oligarchy. 

The war with Mexico had added an enormous area of 
territory to the national domain. From it new states 



were to be soon created by constantly increasing immi- 
gration and settlement. The North, absorbed in diversi- 
fied industries and material development, paid little heed 
to the future, but the South, recognizing the growing 
hostility to its institutions, formed the plan of a per- 
manent balance of power. This was to be accom- 
plished by admitting no free state, unless one which 
recognized slavery came in at the same time. Then, 
with the Senate equally divided between free and 
slave states, slavery would be forever safe from hostile 
legislation. To accomplish this the Missouri compro- 
mise must be repealed. It is difficult for us at this 
distance to realize the reverence with which this com- 
pact was regarded. It was in the popular mind and 
imagination the sacred guarantee of the Union, and 
the dedication of the new territory to free institu- 
tions, free labor, and free states. It had been placed, 
with the Declaration of Independence and the Con- 
stitution of the United States, among the inviolable 
charters and agreements upon which rested the peace 
and perpetuity of the Republic. Every great and 
honored name of a generation of the most distin- 
guished statesmen of both parties was committed to 
its maintenance. No politician could hope to retain 
Northern support who favored its repeal, or hold 
Southern favor, unless he labored for its abrogation. 
The Northern leader who carried through the repeal, 
and it could only be carried by a Northern leader, had 
the fate of Webster and scores of lesser men before 
him. He would be repudiated by one side and aban- 
doned as no longer useful by the other. The South 
grew daily more threatening, and the North more 
sensitive. To the man who could bridge this chasm, and 



fool the North as it had been so often successfully 
hoodwinked before, and satisfy the alert and clear- 
purposed South, the presidency was certain. Stephen 
A. Douglas, a statesman of infinite resources, cour- 
age and ambition, undertook the task. The North 
might be cajoled by promises and an apparently fair 
prospect for freedom — the South cared nothing for 
phrases or pleadings, so long as its object was se- 
cured. This skillful necromancer sought by an artful 
juggle of words to satisfy both sides. He adroitly 
put the Abolitionists of the North and the fire-eaters 
of the South in the category of disunionists, and then 
bid for that conservative support which always con- 
trols in great crises. " We have outgrown the line of 
36° 30''," he cried. " The e.xpansion and limitless pos- 
sibilities of our country have made this limit obsolete. 
The government of the states which will come into the 
Union from the new territory, and the continental 
career, which is our destiny, must be settled upon a 
broad and enduring principle. Let the people of all 
sections go as they list with their property, whether 
chattels or slaves, into the territories, and when the 
period of statehood arrives they can decide by bal- 
lot whether they will recognize or exclude slavery, or 
they may determine the question in the territorial 
legislatures. This leaves the matter with the people, 
and recognizes the very basis of popular govern- 
ment." Under the name of squatter sovereignty this 
remedy captivated the public mind, and Douglas be- 
came the central figure in American politics. 

Governments are mainly the result of successive 
compromises. But there are questions which cannot 
be compromised. Whenever truth has formed a com- 



pact with a lie, the lie has secured all the advan- 
tages. Honesty can be tainted and destroyed by 
fraud, but cannot work with it. Lord Mansfield's 
famous decision rendered four years before our Dec- 
laration of Independence, " that the state of slavery 
is of such a nature that it is incapable of being in- 
troduced on any reasoning, moral or political, but 
only positive law. It is so odious that nothing can 
be suffered to support it but positive law," revealed 
the moral sense and enlightened judgment of the 
world. It rang through all the colonies of Great 
Britain, and found sententious expression in the words 
of the Declaration of Independence, that " all men 
are created equal, with certain inalienable rights, 
among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 
piness." The compromises of 1820, of 1850, and of 
Douglas, were recognitions by positive law of an 
institution so odious that it was condemned by every 
moral and political principle. With each compromise it 
gained strength and power, until it was nearly prepared 
for a life and death struggle with Liberty and Union. 
The specious scheme of Douglas started a race be- 
tween the free and slave state people to capture Kansas. 
Bold raiders from Missouri poured over the border 
carrying murder and pillage among the free state set- 
tlers. Governor after governor was appointed and dis- 
missed by Presidents Pierce ajjd Buchanan because he 
would not assist the slave-holding minority in driving 
out of the territory the vast majority who were opposed 
to slavery. Civil war with all its horrors raged on 
the plains of Kansas, and Henry Ward Beecher, then a 
religious and political force of unparalleled power, set 
the north aflame by hotly informing the domestic mis- 



9 

sions that what Kansas and liberty wanted was not 
Bibles, but rifles. The novel of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 
written by his sister, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and circu- 
lated and read beyond any book ever published in the 
country filled every household with tears and horror, 
intensifying the sentiment against slavery more than 
the press or the pulpit, or the mobbing and murder of 
Abolitionists. 

The slave power, intrenched in the White House and 
Senate, the House of Representatives and the courts, 
controlling the machinery of the Democratic party 
and largely of the Whig party, and repeatedly and 
recently sustained in the elections, felt confident 
that extreme measures for securing Kansas could 
be safely pushed. With the whole strength of the 
Administration behind the conspirators, the Lecompton 
Constitution fastening slavery on the new state was 
fraudulently adopted against the protest, clearly and 
emphatically expressed, of four-fifths of the voters and 
sent to Congress for approval. Douglas, alone, of the 
Democratic leaders, felt the force of the rising tide of 
popular indignation and awakening conscience. 
Against the threats and opposition of the President 
and the Southern Senators he opposed the endorse- 
ment of the Lecompton Constitution, broke from his 
party organization, and demanded that under every 
safeguard for a fair election the Constitution should 
be submitted to the people of Kansas. He stood 
boldly by his principle of squatter sovereignty and 
rallied the masses of the Democratic party of the North. 

While Douglas had satisfied the North with the 
doctrine that the verdict of the people upon their state 
government should prevail, he had appeased the South 



10 

with the understanding that the whole question was 
subject to the decision of the courts. The pro-slav-ery 
leaders who never took a step in the dark knew that a 
decision in an unnoticed case before the Supreme Court 
would be decided in their favor. Douglas was hailed 
by the Northern wing of the party as its savior, and 
rode triumphantly as the " Little Giant " upon the 
wave of popular approval, when the Dred Scott decision 
demolished his beautiful fabric of squatter sovereignty 
and a less resourceful or weaker man would have been 
buried in its ruins. Dred Scott, a slave, had been carried 
by his master into the free state of Illinois, and also 
into the territory where slavery was prohibited by the 
ordinance of 1787. The master was for years a resident 
of these places. Dred Scott married there and had two 
daughters. Moving subsequently into Missouri himself 
and family were re-enslaved. He claimed that if the 
master took his slave into a free state voluntarily and 
made that his residence the slave became free by opera- 
tion of law, and demanded the release of himself and 
family. The English courts from Mansfield's time had 
so decided and such had been the uniform course of 
American decisions, with the modification that the 
owner had a right of transit through a free state to 
another slave state. The case had been for several 
years in the courts without attracting any attention. 
With ten thousand free and two thousand slave state 
voters, and the demand of Douglas for a fair election 
on this question becoming too formidable to be resisted, 
Kansas seemed speedily destined to join the Union free, 
and the "Little Giant" to be the hero of the hour. 
Suddenly the country was amazed and shocked by the 
opinion of Chief Justice Taney, concurred in by the 



II 

four judges from the slave states. Not only were all 
previous decisions reversed and Dred Scott, his wife, 
and daughters, condemned to slavery, but the court de- 
cided that property in slaves was recognized by the 
Constitution, that neither Congress, nor the people of 
the territories had the power to prohibit it, that the 
negro was excepted from the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, was property as sacred as any other form of legal 
possession, and had no rights which a white man was 
bound to respect. 

Such were the political conditions when Douglas 
entered the lists for re-election to the Senate from 
Illinois. President Buchanan and his administration 
ctnd all the influence of the Southern leaders were 
arrayed against him. But the Democracy of Illinois 
loyally supported him, and John J. Crittenden, the 
leader of the Southern Whigs, with Horace Greeley, the 
leader of the anti-slavery forces in the North, and many 
other men of commanding influence favored his election 
on the ground that it would hopelessly divide the 
Democratic party and force Douglas to go with the 
anti-slavery party. The contest became a national 
issue of the first importance and an overwhelming vic- 
tory and triumphal re-entry into the Senate seemed 
sure for Douglas. One man blocked the way, and 
with such tremendous force and superb ability that his 
efibrt consolidated the free sentiment of the country, 
abolished slavery and saved the Union. That man was 
Abraham Lincoln. 

Lincoln and Douglas were rivals in youth for 
the hand of the lady who married the former, and 
contestants in after years for the United States Senate 
and the Presidency. Douglas had been for more than 



12 

a decade without a peer on the platform in Illinois, and 
Lincoln, after years of effort, had come to be recog- 
nized as the only orator who could be safely pitted 
against him. Douglas possessed national fame, while 
Lincoln had only a state reputation. I heard Horace 
Greeley, who knew better than any one the intellectual 
powers of the politicians of his time, say that though 
many men could excel Douglas in a single speech, 
he had no equal in the country in a debate prolonged 
for days or weeks. He could so misstate and then 
demolish his adversary's position that it was next to 
impossible to make clear to an audience wherein lay 
the falsehood. He had the faculty of extricating him- 
self from an apparently hopeless dilemma with an auda- 
city and adroitness which won the applause of his 
hearers. He intuitively saw the weak point of his 
opponent and rushed to the attack with resistless 
boldness and energy. His unscrupulousness and 
untruthfulness, which would have destroyed other 
speakers, made him the most dangerous of debaters. 
When he had the right on his side he marshalled the 
forces of truth with such surprising skill and logical power 
that his friends proudly named him the Little Giant. 
Lincoln had humor and pathos and Douglas pos- 
sessed neither. Lincoln's faculty of being at once 
at home with his audience in the easy familiarity 
which makes them both friendly and receptive was the 
genius of popular oratory. But w^ith these elements 
he had a singularly lucid power of statement and v/as 
master of logic. Unlike Douglas, he was weak unless 
he knew he was right. His whole nature must be 
stirred with the justice of his cause for him to rise 
above the commonplace. But once convinced that 



13 

he was battling for right and truth and he was irre- 
sistible. He became logical, epigrammatic and elo- 
quent. Convincing as was his speech to those who 
listened, it was more powerful when read in cold type. 

Douglas was born in Vermont. He had all the 
advantages of its splendid school system, and improved 
them by an academic education. His boyhood and 
youth were nurtured and taught by precept and ex- 
ample in a New England home- cherishing, church- 
going and liberty-loving community. He moved west 
to teach school, acquire his profession, and begin 
his career with no other hardships than those which 
are essential in America to train and inure ambition 
for success in the battle of life. By birth, associations 
and early influences he should have been opposed to 
slavery, but he became its most efficient defender, ally 
and friend. He lacked moral nature and perception. 

Lincoln was born in a slave state. His father, 
from repeated failures, had lost courage and sunk into 
the condition of the poor white in ante-bellum days. 
He lived in a log cabin with a single room, and his 
companions were the rough, coarse and ignorant chil- 
dren of the neighborhood. He grew to manhood 
wearing the skins of animals for his garments, gigan- 
tic in stature, good-natured, story-telling, protecting 
the weak against the local bully, and the pride of the 
settlement for his strength, size, ready wit and un- 
couth eloquence. The immoral, whiskey-drinking and 
blasphemous associations of this formative period of 
his life never tainted or tarnished his pure and lofty 
soul. His life and experience seem a startling refu- 
tation of the doctrine of man's total depravity in a 
state of nature. With his early environment, great 



14 

gifts and talent for leadership, he was the ideal type 
from which to select a supporter of slavery. But the 
Puritan ancestry whose strength and strain had been 
lost in the Kentucky wilderness of slave-owners and the 
Indiana forest of slave-holding sympathizers marvel- 
lously reproduced, in this homely descendant, the traits 
which carried the Pilgrims from Scroby to Holland 
and from Holland to Plymouth Rock to worship God 
according to the dictates of their consciences on the 
bleak shores of New England and found a government 
of just and equal laws. 

Having sailed down the Mississippi, as a flatboatman, 
to Nevv' Orleans, Lincoln was attracted one day to a 
sale in the slave market. A young girl was put up 
at auction, and after the usual animal examination 
and inspection sold. He turned from the scene with 
horror and registered a mighty oath that come what 
would he would do his best to destroy an institution 
under which such crimes against humanity were possible. 
He had made little mark in the Legislature, but was 
gaining reputation as a stump speaker. His service 
in Congress was distinguished by always voting for the 
Wilmot proviso to prohibit slavery in the territories 
acquired from Mexico, opposing the Mexican war, and 
introducing a bill to abolish slavery in the District of 
Columbia. He spoke in many states in the Presidential 
canvasses of 1844, 1848 and 1852 for the Whig party, 
but while his efforts were popular, they were ordinary 
and perfunctory. It required more than questions of 
tariff, internal improvements and national banking to 
touch his big heart and inspire his great mind to 
supreme effort. He never was at his best unless his 
sympathies were fully enlisted. This long training on 



IS 

the platform had given him the technical skill for 
wonderful work when once his soul and intellect were 
harmoniously aroused for justice and liberty. 

Immediately upon the repeal of the Missouri com- 
promise in 1854, Lincoln, who had retired from politics, 
re-entered the arena to form a party to fight slavery 
strictly within the lines of the Constitution. He saw 
from the weakness of the Abolitionists that this was 
the only successful way of curbing its extension 
and ultimately extinguishing it. He was instru- 
mental in calling a state convention at Bloomington, 
May 29, 1856, of Free Soil Whigs, Democrats opposed 
to the repeal of the Missouri compromise, and 
Abolitionists. Lincoln was the leader of the Free 
Soil Whigs, Owen Lovejoy of the Abolitionists, and 
General John M. Palmer of the Free Soil Democrats. 
The speech which thrilled and consolidated the con- 
vention was made by Lincoln. From it sprang the 
Republican party of Illinois. This creative effort, 
which was burned in the mind and memory of every 
delegate, has long been known as Lincoln's lost 
speech, because it was not reported. It has recently 
been reproduced after having been buried for forty 
years in the notes of a young lawyer who was present. 
It stirs the blood now like a bugle call for battle. 
" We have seen this day," he said, " that every shade 
of popular opinion is represented here, with freedom 
or rather free soil as the basis. We came to protest 
against a great wrong, and to take measures to make 
that wrong right, and the plain way to do this is to 
restore the Missouri compromise, and to demand and 
determine that Kansas shall be free. Thomas Jefferson, 
a slaveholder, mindful of the moral element in slavery. 



i6 

solemnly declared, ' I tremble for my country when I 
remember that God is just ; ' while Judge Douglas, with 
an insignificant move of his hand, ' don't care 
whether slavery is voted up or voted down.' The 
battle of freedom is to be fought out on principle. 
Slavery is a violation of eternal right. We have 
temporized with it from the necessities of our condi- 
tion, but as sure as God reigns and school children 
read, that black, foul lie can never be consecrated into 
God's hallowed truth. The conclusion of all this 
is that we must restore the Missouri compromise. We 
must highly resolve that Kansas must be free. We 
must reaffirm the Declaration of Independence ; we 
must make good in essence as well as in form 
Madison's avowal that the word slave ought not to 
appear in the Constitution. We must make this a land 
of liberty in fact as it is in name. But in seeking 
to attain these results — so indispensable — if the liberty 
which is our pride and boast shall endure, we will be 
loyal to the Constitution and to the flag of the Union, 
and no matter what our grievance and no matter what 
theirs, we will say to the Southern disunionists, ' We 
will not go out of the Union and you shall not' " 

In the Fremont campaign Mr. Lincoln, at the head 
of the electoral ticket in Illinois, made a canvass so 
thorough and brilliant as to establish his leadership of 
the Republican party in the state, and Douglas made 
repeated visits home and on each occasion delivered a 
characteristic speech which was soon answered by 
Lincoln. Now the time had come when he must be 
returned to the Senate or retired to private life. The 
situation was intensely dramatic, and claimed the atten- 
tion of the country. Douglas was feared by all the 



17 

famous debaters in the Senate. His defiance of Bu- 
chanan and fight against the Lecompton Constitution 
had made him the Northern Democratic leader and 
won for him the admiration and support of multitudes 
of anti- slavery people. He had brought the compara- 
tively new state of Illinois to the front rank in the 
national legislature, and the state was very proud of 
him. The persecution of the Administration secured' 
him a hundred friends for every postmaster dismissed. 
He controlled the machinery of a successful party, and 
had the prestige and power of an aggressive and tri- 
umphant organization behind him. Lincoln keenly 
felt the limitation of local reputation, the responsibil- 
ity of his position in a national crisis, and the lack of 
party confidence in the East in his ability for the task. 
Douglas could both defend positions then generally 
conceded to be right, and attack principles which were 
new and alarming in practical politics. When hard 
pressed he could retreat behind time-honored preju- 
dices and revered and moss-covered traditions. Lincoln 
must be always in the open. He had to attack, pull 
down and build up. He had that most difficult task for 
an orator to separate wrong from right when they have 
been so entwined for generations that to attempt to 
destroy the one and save the other seems to the timid 
a surgical operation which may be a splendid exhibition 
of skill, but death to the patient. 

The cotton-growing South was the home market for 
the food products and manufactures of the North. The 
money power and business and social influences of the 
North were fearful of offending the slave owners. 
Portions of the press and pulpit of the North were 
in harmony with that unanimous advocacy of the right 



i8 

and justice of slavery by the press and pulpit of the 
South, which educated a generation of Southern State 
men to stake their lives and fortunes for, to them, a 
sacred cause. There was a superstitious reverence 
for the Constitution and dread of the dissolution of the 
Union as infinitely worse than surrender to slavery. 
Four thousand millions of dollars invested in human 
beings in the South, and a large portion of the capital 
of the North engaged in business connected with the 
slave-holding states, so blinded honest, intelligent and 
well-meaning people that to them God and mammon 
were one. No more important council ever gathered 
than the conclave of friends summoned to Springfield 
by Lincoln that he might read to them his opening 
speech. The keynote of it was the famous declaration, 
" A house divided against itself cannot stand. I be- 
lieve this government cannot endure permanently half 
slave and half free." 

" I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do 
not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will 
cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or 
all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will 
arrest the farther spread of it, and place it where the 
public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in due course 
of ultimate extinction ; or its advocates will push it for- 
ward until it shall become alike lawful in all the states 
— old as well as new, north as well as south." The 
shrewd politicians about him unanimously opposed his 
making this statement. They said Douglas would seize 
upon and use it to arouse the Union sentiment in his 
favor, and frighten the timid from Lincoln by claiming 
it to threaten a dissolution of the Union. Lincoln's 
answer was the first revelation to his advisers and the 



19 

country of that basic moral element in his nature which 
ultimately found its full expression in the proclamation 
of emancipation. He said : " I would rather be de- 
feated with these expressions in my speech held up and 
discussed before the people than be victorious without 
them." Regardless of personal consequences or the 
danger signals of the hour, he lost the Senatorship and 
gained the Presidency by illustrating in both speech 
and action his abiding faith that God reigns. He in- 
tensely believed that false teachings, inherited preju- 
dices, party loyalty, and material interests might 
encrust the national conscience, but that this could be 
broken by the sledge hammer of truth. He knew that 
to temporize with error is to strengthen its hold. His 
prophetic wisdom, far-sighted statesmanship and 
unquestioning trust in the final judgment of those 
whom he delighted to call the plain people were con- 
spicuously confirmed when two millions of citizens an- 
swered his call and left homes and family and business 
to give their lives for the Union and the flag. 

It is always the device of party managers who are 
corruptly using their power to charge that the reformers 
who would purify the organization will destroy it. 
This simply means that they will either rule or ruin ; 
but the threat deceives multitudes, who cannot see that 
attacking false leaders is not assailing the party. Tens 
of thousands of well-meaning men believed that to 
assail slavery was to endanger the Union. They could 
not understand that, while the slaveholders were shout- 
ing patriotically to the anti-slavery forces, " If you do 
not stop this agitation you will dissolve the Union," 
they meant " if you do not leave slavery where it is and 
permit its extension where it is not, we will break up 



20 

the Republic." It was Lincoln's task to make this clear, 
and place the responsibility for secession upon those 
who seceded and for rebellion upon those who rebelled, 
and he did it with unequaled eloquence and power. 

Douglas knew the taste and temper of the pre- 
vailing opinion, and played upon it with consummate 
skill. He declared the doctrine of a " house divided 
against itself was a declaration of relentless sectional 
war," He presented with tremendous force the Union 
dissolved by this crusade, the people and their insti- 
tutions buried in common ruin, and peace, prosperity 
and perpetuity with the Union saved by his prin- 
ciple of popular sovereignty, enabling the people of 
the territories to settle the slavery question for them- 
selves. He inflamed popular prejudice by declaring 
that the phrase " all men are created equal " in the 
Declaration of Independence did not refer to negroes, 
and if Lincoln's contention that it did prevailed, then 
there would be universal negro equality. One of 
the most effective devices of the campaign was the 
wagons loaded with the lovely girls from prairie 
homes plaintively proclaiming by their banners that 
they would not marry niggers. Lincoln's answer was 
memorable and philosophic. Its calm assertion of a 
principle rose far above the catch-penny artifice of 
sophistical jugglery. He said : "I do not understand 
the Declaration of Independence to mean that all 
men are created equal in all respects. They are not 
equal in color. But I believe that it does mean to 
declare that all men are equal in some respects — they 
are equal in their right to life, liberty, and the pur- 
suit of happiness." 

As the great debate proceeded the whole country 



21 

became the audience. The discussion was rapidly 
moulding public opinion, promoting patriotism and dis- 
solving parties. The people were eager students in a 
national university, with the two most eminent teachers 
of their time preparing them for the impending crisis. 
Douglas concentrated his attack upon three positions 
of Lincoln, " the house divided against itself," which 
he claimed meant the dissolution of the Union ; the 
application of the words " all men are created equal" 
of the Declaration of Independence to blacks as well as 
whites, which he asserted would result in social equality 
with the negroes, and Lincoln's protest against the 
Dred Scott decision, which he construed to be an at- 
tempt to overthrow or defy the Supreme Court. The 
Union and the Supreme Court were regarded with 
patriotic reverence and ardent devotion by practically 
all the people of the north. Mr. Lincoln's reply on the 
Supreme Court was as judicious and effective as his 
defense of the " house divided against itself" idea, and 
his justification of " all men are created equal " includ 
ing black men. He held the Constitution to be inviol- 
able, except as it might be amended by the processes 
prescribed in that instrument. He admitted that the 
fugitive slave law was constitutional. He proclaimed 
his profound respect for tliat great tribunal which had 
represented so long and with such dignity and wisdom 
the judicial branch of our federal system. He would 
resist any attempt to weaken its powers or impair its 
authority. But believing the Dred Scott decision wrong 
in law, as well as in morals, and strengthened in that 
belief because it was rendered by a divided court, he 
would strive for a rehearing and labor incessantly to so 
educate the conscience of the people as to secure an 



22 

amendment to the constitution prohibiting slavery in 
the territories. 

Lincoln's battles were always fought strictly within 
the limits of the constitution and laws as they existed. 
Law and order never had a more vigorous defender. 
If the court interpreted the constitution against his 
judgment and conscience, he would bow to its opinion, 
but agitate to so amend the charter as to clearly estab- 
lish liberty in that instrument. The amendments pro- 
hibiting slavery and guaranteeing civil right to all 
citizens without regard to creed, color or previous con- 
dition in life, which were adopted after the civil war, 
were on the lines and by the methods of Lincoln's con- 
servative and patriotic way of remedying wrongs and 
asserting the right. 

Lincoln's view grew broader and higher. He again 
summoned his friends and admirers. He submitted to 
them whether he should ask and compel Douglas to 
answer the question whether, notwithstanding the Dred 
Scott decision had declared that slavery was lawful in 
the territories under the Constitution, " the people of a 
territory could in any lawful way exclude slavery from 
its limits prior to the formation of a state constitution ?'" 
This nakedly presented the deadly antagonism between 
the Dred Scott decision and the " popular sovereignty " 
of Douglas. Lincoln's friends unanimously advised 
against it. They knew his answer would be that the 
decision of the Supreme Court could not enforce itself, 
and therefore, regardless of it, the people of the terri- 
tories, by unfriendly legislation and police regulations, 
could exclude slavery. They said this would satisfy 
Illinois and re-elect Douglas Senator. Lincoln's answer 
was again lofty and memorable : " I am after loftier 



2.1 

game. If Douglas so answers he can never be Presi- 
dent, and the battle of i860 is worth a hundred of 
this." Douglas answered as anticipated. The an- 
swer defeated Lincoln and made Douglas Senator, 
but it split the Democratic party two years later and 
drove it from power. It defeated Douglas for the 
Presidency and carried Lincoln into the White House. 

Upon this platform, and on this very spot, thirty- 
eight years ago to-day, stood these intellectual athletes. 
Neither they, nor the vast audience which enjoyed 
their thrusts and parries, cheered their effective blows, 
and were entranced by their eloquence, knew how 
rapidly they were making history ; how ably they were 
preparing the most important chapter in the story of the 
nineteenth century. It was the battle eternally going 
on, " Often lost, but ever won," between principle and 
expediency. 

Lincoln was tall, gaunt, awkward and homely, 
with a high, penetrating voice, which reached easily 
the utmost limits of the crowd. Douglas was short, 
corpulent and dignified, with the grace and courtesy 
of Senatorial custom and association, and spoke with 
deep tones and slow enunciation, as if every Avord 
was weighted with an important argument. Doug- 
las was the more adroit debater, Lincoln the more cogent 
reasoner. Douglas could capture the crowd by those 
courtesies to his opponent behind which he misrepre- 
sented his position, while Lincoln, untrained to com- 
pliment, grew resentful and harsh at these successful 
falsifications. Lincoln could lift his audience by a 
passionate appeal to their better nature for the slave, 
for justice and for liberty. Douglas was always the 
fighter and debater. Lincoln consciously and Douglas 



24 

unconsciously were preparing the people of the free 
states for the sacrifices of civil war and the preservation 
of the national life. It is to the eternal honor and 
glory of Douglas that when the war broke out the 
partisan became a patriot and gave to his life-long 
antagonist, President Lincoln, his unqualified support. 

For the questions they debated here hundreds of 
thousands of our countrymen died upon the field of 
battle. The South fought as Americans can fight for 
what they believed to be right, and the North fought as 
Americans can fight for what time has demonstrated 
was the right. The vow registered by Lincoln, the 
rough flatboatman of nineteen, at the slave mart 
in New Orleans, was fulfilled by Lincoln, 
President of the United States, in the pro- 
clamation which freed the slaves and m.ade the 
sentence for freedom in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence both a sentiment and a fact. Two millions of 
volunteer soldiers helped him enforce his message to 
the disunionists in his first speech at the commence- 
ment of this debate, " We will not go out of the 
Union and you shall not." 

The famous controversy over the " House divided 
against itself," nowhere discussed more bitterly than 
here on this platform, ended at Appomattox. The 
house did not fall, but it did become " all free." The 
new South, the peopled West, the enriched East, and 
the prosperous North can calmly review the issues 
which so radically divided them in the past and rever- 
ently thank God that in the final conflict and its settle- 
ment the leader of the forces of union and liberty was 
the great-hearted, broad-souled, wise- brained man of 
love and charity, Abraham Lincoln. 



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